portrait painted by (Sir) Arthur Cope, R.A., and presented it ‘from the navy to the nation’. It was hung in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. In November 1912 a ‘Sir Frederick Richards memorial fund’ was established by a large representative meeting of admirals, friends, and admirers, the trustees of which make charitable grants to naval and marine officers and their dependants. A memorial tablet is in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Richards married in 1866 Lucy (died 1880), daughter of Fitzherbert Brooke, of Horton Court, Gloucestershire, and widow of the Rev. Edwin Fayle. They had no children.
[Admiralty records; private information.]
RICHMOND, Sir WILLIAM BLAKE (1842–1921), artist, the second son of George Richmond, R.A. [q.v.], by his wife, Julia, daughter of Charles Heathcote Tatham [q.v.], architect, was born in London 29 November 1842. While still a boy he became an enthusiastic student of the writings of Ruskin and was led by them to a keen admiration of the works of Holman Hunt, Millais, and the pre-Raphaelite school; but he never formally adopted the principles of the Brotherhood, though their influence, together with that of Leighton and Da Costa, is clearly traceable in much of his work. Richmond was educated at home till 1858, when he entered the Royal Academy Schools; there he gained in 1859 second prize (silver medal) for a drawing from the antique, and in 1861 third prize (silver medal) for a drawing from the life; in the latter year he was also represented for the first time at the annual exhibition by a portrait of his brothers Walter and John. This brought him several commissions, but he was not misled by these into the belief that he had no more to learn; and in 1865 he went to Italy, where for four years he devoted himself to sculpture, architecture, and painting in tempera and fresco. The results of his studies in sculpture were seen later in statues of ‘An Athlete’ and ‘The Arcadian Shepherd’, and a bust ‘Lady Richmond’. His studies in fresco stood him in good stead when in 1873 he painted a series of frescoes illustrating ‘The Life of Woman’ (in the house of J. S. Hodgson, Lythe Hill, Haslemere); but his only performance in tempera seems to have been a ceiling which he painted for practice in his hotel at Assisi in 1867, and found forty-six years later as fresh as on the day when it was finished.
Continuing at the same time to work in oils, Richmond brought back with him from Italy in 1869 a picture of ‘A Procession in Honour of Bacchus’, and exhibited it that year at the Royal Academy. To such subjects he would have been well content to confine himself thenceforward, and he did in fact complete a considerable number, among them being ‘Ariadne abandoned by Theseus’ (1872), ‘Prometheus Bound’ (1874), ‘Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon’ (1877), now in the gallery at Toronto, ‘The Birth of Venus’ (1881), ‘An Audience at Athens during the Performance of Agamemnon’ (1885), now at Birmingham, ‘The Death of Ulysses’ (1888), ‘Venus and Anchises’ (1889), now at Liverpool, ‘The Bath of Venus’ (1891), and many others. But the gift of pleasing portraiture inherited from his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, was too marked to be neglected, and Richmond, had he so desired, might have fully occupied his time with that alone. He was conspicuously in favour with the peerage and the bench of bishops, but among his sitters of more important interest were W. E. Gladstone, Prince Bismarck, Charles Darwin, Theodor Mommsen, Robert Browning, and Andrew Lang.
Richmond's chief claim, however, to the attention of posterity will doubtless rest on the great scheme for the decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on which he was engaged for several years. Stirred to interest in this by the architect, George Frederick Bodley, he drew up a plan into the execution of which, when it was approved in 1891, he threw himself whole-heartedly. Convinced that mosaic was the only material suited to the London atmosphere, he found that he must first master the technique himself and then impart it to the British craftsmen. Moreover, the customary method of building up the mosaic elsewhere and then attaching it to the walls was found to be incompatible with a solution of the various problems of light which arose; he decided, therefore, to execute the work on the spot. Opinions differ as to the result, but it is beyond dispute the most complete and consistent piece of internal decoration which has been achieved in England for many years.
Preferring always to work at art rather than to talk about it, Richmond was nevertheless persuaded to accept the post of Slade professor of fine art at Oxford when Ruskin retired in 1879. He resigned the chair in 1883. Several lectures and addresses of his were published at intervals, and his Assisi, Impressions of Half a Cen--
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